Card of the Day: 1994 Ted Williams Co. O.J. Simpson autograph

Call me a sick bastard, but I’ve got an OJ Simpson autograph. Do you? I’m not much of a football collector. I ditched that collection about four years ago and went almost exclusively to baseball. But among the football items that remain is this 1994 Ted Williams Co. OJ Simpson autograph.

Simpson’s legacy on the field is all but forgotten at this point. We all know him as the man who was accused, and later acquitted, of double murder in the early 1990s in connection with the deaths of his wife and her friend. There’s plenty of room for debate as to what people think happened, but fact is he was not convicted, so to call him a murderer is wrong, and frankly illegal.

But more than a decade after being released from jail in that case, Simpson has been convicted of a slew of charges connected to a heist in which he and another man apparently conspired to steal and then tried to rob some dealers of their OJ Simpson memorabilia. Simpson was sentenced Friday to as much as 33 years in jail for his role in that crime.

I’m not going to waste too much more cyber ink on Simpson’s legal woes per se because honestly, I just don’t feel like writing it, and you probably don’t care to read it.

However, I do want to take a brief moment to discuss this card. This card was signed and distributed in 1994, after the OJ legal saga began. And if memory serves me right, these Simpson autographs were signed WHILE HE WAS IN JAIL. I believe OJ also signed cards for Signature Rookies while he was incarcerated. I find this aspect VERY interesting.

The value of these kind of cards really does lie with the person who is purchasing said item. That saying can be applied to everything, but this is even more true in the case of a man who is now a criminal.

As a collector of sports cards, would you carve out a place in your collection for an OJ autograph if the price is right?

For the record, I also have one of these. And yes, they do reside in the same dark box.

I also have one of these cards which were from the Ted Williams card co. and ltd to 750 as part of the silver series and they were in fact signed while he was incarcerated and I have a document stating this fact which came with the autographed card – I also purchased an uncut sheet of the cards as well which is in mint condition and autographed as well with the certificate of authenticity from the correctional facility which makes these extremely rare from the stand-point that the number of heisman trophy winners that are as famous as O.J Simpson and the extreme publicity surrounding his case is unequalled in history and he was found innocent regardless of the opinions of the many arm-chair lawyers and judges who live mainly in North America and have themselves tried O.J. and passed judgement without regard of the legal judicial system which did their duty and found him innocent based on the evidence submitted and given the due process which we as a population have put in place to decide the fate of people facing charges upon which we rely the system to determine if the accused is guilty in fact or not guilty of crimes for which they stand accused. O.J Simpson may not be a shining example of the perfect model of citizen but when tried he was found not guilty – since then he has committed theft of his own memorabilia which I believe compounds the rarity stated previously and makes the autographed cards which are very rare due to the fact that they are signed in a jail – which is unheard of and also the last of credible autographed memorabilia of an exceptional athlete regardless of the events outside of the sport of football where his achievements are exceptional and speak for themselves but are also from a hall of fame running back who’s going to go down in history as a heisman trophy winner and NFL player who commanded respect on the playing field and nobody can dispute those facts.

The Signature Rookies cards that were signed by O.J. Simpson in the Los Angeles County jail from August 1, 1994 thru August 31, 1994, came with a voucher card that you signed and returned to the company. Signature Rookies took that voucher card and placed the 2 cards side by side and sealed them inside a lucite holder, using tamper-proof security tape. There were 2,500 of these Signature Rookies cards but what makes some of them uniquely collectible are the names on the voucher cards. There are 4 of these 2 card sets where the voucher card was signed by murder trial witness Rosa Lopez aka the maid from El Salvador. This was how she was referred to by the media. These 4 cards were used as part of a major media hoax when a comedian from Baltimore who pretended to teach yoga to cats went on the Geraldo Rivera show and claimed that he was engaged to Ms. Lopez and that OJ was going to give away the bride. Vanity Fair magazine wrote about the engagement several times. The hoax was revealed by CNN legal analyst Jeffrey Toobin in his best seller – “The Run Of His Life, The People v O.J. Simpson” on page # 311 … This took place after he told Toobin that Vanity Fair magazine had printed that Lopez ended the engagement because she was allergic to the cats at my Cat Yoga school. Cat Yoga, as in, the Ancient Art of Cat Yoga, which was taught in the ancient Cat Yoga temples of Tibet. Cat Yoga – turban wearing house cats who sit with their paws folded in the Lotus position and meditate. This story made International news and these 4 Rosa Lopez – OJ Simpson signed cards are some of the most unusual sports cards you will ever find.